SECTION 1.
KNOTTED CORDS AND OBJECTS TIED.
Dr. Hoffman reports a device among the Indians formerly inhabiting the mountain valleys north of Los Angeles, California, who brought or sent to the settlements blankets, skins, and robes for sale. The man trusted to transport and sell those articles was provided with a number of strings made of some flexible vegetable fiber, one string for each class of goods, which were attached to his belt. Every one confiding an article to the agent fixed the price, and when he disposed of it a single knot was tied to the proper cord for each real received, or a double knot for each peso. Thus any particular string indicated the kind of goods sold, as well as the whole sum realized for them, which was distributed according to the account among the former owners of the goods.
Mr. George Turner (a) says that among the South Sea Islanders tying a number of knots in a piece of cord was a common way of noting and remembering things in the absence of a written language.
A peculiar and ingenious mode of expressing thoughts without pronouncing or writing them in language is still met with among the Indian shepherds in the Peruvian Cordilleras, though it is practiced merely in the accounts of the flocks. This system consists of a peculiar intertwining of various strings into a net-like braidwork, and the diverse modes of tying these strings form the record, the knots and loops signifying definite ideas and their combination the connection of these ideas. This system of mnemonic device, which was practiced by the ancient Peruvians, was called quipu, and, though a similar knot-writing is found in China, Tartary, eastern Asia, on many islands of the Pacific, and even in some parts of Africa, yet in Peru, at the time of the Incas, it was so elaborately developed as to permit its employment for official statistics of the government. Of course, as this writing gave no picture of a word and did not suggest sounds, but, like the notched stick, merely recalled ideas already existing, the writing could be understood by those only who possessed the key to it; but it is noteworthy that when the Jesuit missions began their work in Peru they were able to use the quipus for the purpose of making the Indians learn Latin prayers by heart.
A more detailed account of the ancient quipu is extracted from Dr. von Tschudi’s Travels in Peru (a) with condensation as follows:
This method consisted in the dexterous intertwining of knots on strings, so as to render them auxiliaries to the memory. The instrument was composed of one thick head or top string, to which, at certain distances, thinner ones were fastened. The top string was much thicker than these pendent strings and consisted of two doubly twisted threads, over which two single threads were wound. The branches, or pendent strings, were fastened to the top ones by a single loop; the knots were made in the pendent strings and were either single or manifold. The length of the strings was various. The transverse or top string often measures several yards, and sometimes only a foot; the branches are seldom more than 2 feet long, and in general they are much shorter.
The strings were often of different colors, each having its own particular signification. The color for soldiers was red; for gold, yellow; for silver, white; for corn, green, etc. The quipu was especially employed for numerical and statistical tables; each single knot representing ten; each double knot stood for one hundred; each triple knot for one thousand, etc.; two single knots standing together made twenty; and two double knots, two hundred.
In this manner the ancient Peruvians kept the accounts of their army. On one string were numbered the soldiers armed with slings; on another the spearmen; on a third, those who carried clubs, etc. In the same manner the military reports were prepared. In every town some expert men were appointed to tie the knots of the quipu and to explain them. These men were called quipucamayocuna (literally, officers of the knots.) The appointed officers required great dexterity in unriddling the meaning of the knots. It, however, seldom happened that they had to read a quipu without some verbal commentary. Something was always required to be added if the quipu came from a distant province, to explain whether it related to the numbering of the population, to tributes, or to war, etc. This method of calculation is still practiced by the shepherds of Puna. On the first branch or string they usually place the number of the bulls; on the second, that of the cows, the latter being classed into those which were milked and those which were not milked; on the next string were numbered the calves according to their ages and sizes. Then came the sheep, in several subdivisions. Next followed the number of foxes killed, the quantity of salt consumed, and, finally, the cattle that had been slaughtered. Other quipus showed the produce of the herds in milk, cheese, wool, etc. Each list was distinguished by a particular color or by some peculiarity in the twisting of the string.
Other accounts tell that the descendants of the Quiches still use the quipu, perhaps as modified by themselves, for numeration. They pierce beans and hang them by different colored strings, each of which represents one of the column places used in decimal arithmetic. A green string signifies 1,000; a red one, 100; a yellow, 10, and a white refers to the 9 smaller digits. Thus if 7 beans are on a green, 2 on a red, 8 on a yellow, and 6 on a white string, and the whole tied together, the bundle expresses the number 7,286.